Improvement in envelopes for cartridges for fire-arms



UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

A. K. JOHNSTON, OF MIDDLETOWN, GONNEOTIGUT, AND L. DOW, OF TOPEKA,

KANSAS.

IMPROVEMENT IN ENVELOPES FOR CARTRIDGES FO'R FIRE-ARMS.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 34,061, dated January 7, 1862.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that we, ALGERNON K. J OHN- s'roN, of Middletown, in the State of Connecticut, and LORENZO DOW, of Topeka, in the State of Kansas, have invented, and do claim as our joint invention, a new and improved method of making the envelope for cartridges for rifles, muskets, carbines, shotguns, pistols, and all species of fire-arms in which a percussion-cap or'its equivalent is used to ignite the charge.

We here append a full and exact description of ourinvention and of the mode of manufacture.

Paper, cloth, or other fabric or textile material is first converted into gun-cotton, orits equivalent, in the usual manner, viz: by treatment with nitric acid (N0 in combination with sulphuric acid, (S0,,) or with a nitrate as nitrateof potash (KONO )and sulphuric acid in combination. If the raw material has been used, it must next be manufactured into a fabric. Next, the cartridge, having been made with powder and ball in the usual man ner, is treated with a coating of collodion, thus producing a cartridge perfectly combustible, entirely water-proof, and of great strength.

Theadvantagesofthisoverany othermethod are that hereby a cartridge possessing the above-named qualities is produced at a smaller cost and much more expeditiously than by any other plan. I

We do notclaim to have invented gun-cotton, nor to have first used it in the construction of a cartridge; neither to have been the first to make use of collodion as a waterprooier; but the combination without the use of an oxidizing-salt is new.

We then desire to obtain Letters Patent for and claim- As an article of manufacture, the envelope of a cartridge constructed as above described,

and for the purposes set forth.

ALGERNON K. JOHNSTON. LORENZO DOW. Witnesses:

JULIUS R. POMEROY, DANIEL POMEROY. 

